


even the stars refuse to shine

by lettersfromnowhere



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, I've never used that tag, They're gr8, fix-it with a side of angst, kind of?, lmk if I'm using it wrong/misleadingly, this makes no sense, those depressing conversations about hypotheticals guys, vague IW references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 08:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15384627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: The nightmare's never the worst part - it's waking up and thinking too much that hurts the most.





	even the stars refuse to shine

**Author's Note:**

> This is very incoherent and utterly confused about the tone it wants to have. That said, I hope some of you like it anyway. :) 
> 
>  
> 
> Title is from "Collide" by Howie Day.

Peter stumbled towards the door, clumsily shoving it open to let the night’s biting cold in. Flopping down on the ledge, he rested his feet against the rough ground below the ship, needing to feel its solidity, to know that something in his world was constant, desperate collect his reeling thoughts.

 

“Can’t sleep?”

 

Peter turned, startled from his thoughts. “No,” he said, staring at the ground. “I…thought the fresh air might help.”

 

Gamora knelt beside him. “I couldn’t, either,” she sighed. Peter moved over to vacate a space for her, instinctively wrapping his arm around her shoulders. He noted with concern that they were trembling.

 

“You’re shaking.” He turned to her, his face betraying near-panic. “Is it too cold? Did someth-“

 

“I’m fine, Peter,” Gamora said, avoiding his eyes.

 

“’Mora.” Peter lifted her chin. “People who are fine don’t shake.”

 

“Do you ever have nightmares about…all of this?” Gamora asked, skirting the subject. 

 

Peter paused, turning over possible responses in his mind, trying to choose the best. “…yeah,” he admitted cautiously. “Tonight, actually. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t notice, but I didn’t exactly want you to know, so…”

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, leaning into his embrace. Peter glanced down at her, marveling at her intuition, the way she always seemed to _know_ – know that he was terrified she’d disappear without a trace, know that what he most needed was closeness, proof she wouldn’t. She glanced at him with a fleeting, thinly-veiled “I knew it” look.

 

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be too much?”

 

“Peter, you can tell me anything,” Gamora replied. “If you need to talk about it, go ahead.”

 

“All of nightmares are about losing you,” he started, swallowing hard. “And it’s not like a recurring dream. It’s always different.”

 

“Well, I’m still here,” Gamora mumbled, staring off into space wearily. “And I’m not going-“

 

“And the dreams aren’t the worst part,” Peter added. “At least I wake up from those-”

 

“It’s what comes after,” Gamora finished, knowing all too well. She’d tried, told herself she’d be the backbone, hold him up when his own spirit failed. But at night, when she surrendered control of her thoughts, let her mind fill with all the things in sleep that she kept from her mind when waking…

 

She knew the feeling of losing him all too intimately in her dreams.

 

“You…you have them too?” Peter asked, trying to fight the fear from his voice but knowing fully the futility of his efforts. He told himself he wouldn’t let her know what lurked behind the barriers he’d built up in his mind, but the effort was doomed from the start. Peter knew as well as any that he wore his heart on his sleeve and no effort would alter his innate tendency to display.

 

But he still felt, for her, like he needed to try.

 

“Peter, we both died,” she sighed, wincing at her own frankness. “Of course I do.”

 

“Is that why you were shaking?” Peter asked, his tone gentle but uncontrollably wobbly.

 

“It’s also cold out,” Gamora countered.

 

“What are yours about?” Peter started, quickly catching himself. “Actually, no, don’t tell me anything unless you want to.”

 

“You said yours weren’t recurring,” she said, “but mine are. They’re…always about Knowhere.”

 

“Waking up is the worst part,” Peter said, trying to keep the memory of that day from his mind before it crept its way in and burrowed down where he couldn’t extract it.

 

“Peter,” Gamora sighed. “You’re changing the subject again.”

 

“I can’t talk about Knowhere, okay?” he glanced up at the sky futilely, as if it would give him answers, fix the irreparable tear in his heart that day had left. “Please…”

 

She nodded. “What happens when you wake up?” Gamora asked, voice hitching slightly at the realization that she'd struck a nerve.

 

“It’s like all the questions I don’t let myself ask flood my mind at once, and I can’t get them out,” Peter told her, clutching her shoulders out of something Gamora couldn’t quote distinguish – unable to see if it was fear or a protective instinct. “I always wonder what would have happened if I’d really lost you.”

 

“I’d have wanted you to keep going,” Gamora told him, biting her lip to hold back tears. “But that’s not something you have to think about anymore.”

  
  
“I don’t know if I could have,” Peter confessed, his voice breaking ever so slightly. “I don’t even want to _think_ about a life without you.”

 

“You could’ve if you were called upon to,” Gamora muttered, anxiously squeezing his hand.

 

Peter squeezed back absentmindedly, trying to ground himself, break up the storm in his mind. “I guess I would have wanted you to forget me and move on, if you were in that position.”

 

Gamora let out a long sigh. “Peter, that is a ridiculous statement. How would forgetting about you help the situation?”

 

“I’ve thought way too much about losing you, but I haven’t really thought a lot about what would happen if the opposite were true,” Peter admitted. “I’d just want you to move on, I guess.”

 

“Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting,” Gamora said. “You wouldn’t forget me, would you?”

 

“Nor would I ever move on, probably,” Peter mumbled.

 

“What a mess we are,” Gamora sighed, shaking her head.

 

“You can say that again,” Peter replied, almost laughing, his mind begging for a catharsis, something to release the tension of his melancholy. “We really are." 

 

“A composed mess, but a mess nonetheless,” Gamora decided.

 

Peter smiled softly, bending to kiss the crown of her head. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

 

“Not for as long as I can stay.”

 

If they’d learned anything, that was it – staying was anything but a guarantee. _Nothing_ was a guarantee, for that matter. Their universe could shift on its axis in a second and nothing would be the same. Their world was fraught with peril as it had always been, loss a constant above all others. But for now, for here, there was them, and the beautiful mess they’d made for themselves, and the worst had been averted.

 

Both knew all too well that to love something was to have something you could lose. But for this – for them – the risk was justified.


End file.
